You Can't Fight It

@Bron: Thank you.

@Amir: Thanks, and to you, and everyone else who took the time to leave comments, sorry I haven't responded sooner, but I haven't had much time to look at photos or reply the last couple days.

@MaryB: This is in sort of the "Art Deco" style and was built in 1939.

@Eleftheria, 9 years old,: Thank you.

@Shar: Thank you.

@JeBeKe: I used the Photomatix plug-in on a single image in Photoshop Elements. I tweaked the controls for approximately what I wanted --I don't remember exactly, but probably something like 80 effect, 80 saturation, 0 or -1 on local contrast, and maybe -4 or so on luminosity. Then I made a duplicate layer, set it to multiply, probably around 30-40%, and used the adjust shadows/highlight tool to lighten shadows --around 2% I think-- and boost contrast --probably about 20%. More recently I've been experimenting with the Nik Color Efex filter set as an alternate method of getting the tonality and contrast I want after using Photomatix.